NOVEL NEXT Interlude Dragons, and Villages
The cold wind buffeted her body as she soared through the air, but she barely felt it. Her gaze took in the details below. It had been a few days since the disturbance she had spotted in this area occurred. She had not been in too much of a rush to check it out, but she still needed to look into the disturbance so here she was. A magical disturbance like that was obviously the work of a powerful mage and she wasn’t aware of any strong mages in this area. With any luck they were unattached to anyone and she could take them under her wing.
She let out a breath. Maybe things would go better this time around for her plans; she needed a priestess, a powerful one. Preferably several to make up for her last one that had rebelled and run away. She was very much still upset about that and if she ever did find that fool girl Ivy, she was going to give her a suitable punishment. After that she was going to correct that fool’s mentality. Ivy was going to do her part whether she liked it or not. She let out another breath with a flash of fire this time. That damn girl had really foiled her plans by running. If she hadn’t she might have finished restoring the elven lands to their proper state by now.
Below the forest gave way to clearing and a massive lake came into view. Her eye quickly noticed two things, a village on the shoreline and the shoreline itself. Even from up here she could tell it had recently been... remodeled. Likely from a large scale spell. Then something else came to her attention. It seemed she was not the first to come investigate the village.
An armored figure emerged from one of the houses. Emblazoned upon his armored breastplate was a symbol she despised. Placed prominently on the breastplate was a depiction of two kneeling and naked slave girls before a blazing central sun. A sword and scepter crossed over that central symbol and placed in the middle of the sun was a simple symbol. A symbol often associated with men. She recognized the entire thing and who it belonged to. The Church of Aurous, it marked the man as a knight of that filthy church.
They should not even be here. This was the Bluewood, Elven lands. So what was the church of Aurous doing here? They had little power outside of the Theocracy where they were strangely popular. That damn church was certainly causing her issues as well, but that was now. She had a few ideas for dealing with them, but it again came down to needing a strong priestess. Ivy would have been perfect if the girl hadn’t run off. Her mind didn’t focus on that. Instead her keen eyes had spotted something distasteful. Utterly distasteful.
Now that she was looking for the figures, she was quick to notice what was going on in the village square. Quite a few elven girls had been herded together, their clothes shredded as they were treated... poorly. Even as she looked, one young girl was dragged into the square. Her clothes were already torn, her skin marred with bruises and a collar fitted around her neck. A slave’s collar to be specific and the poor girl wasn’t even a proper adult.
She was roughly dragged up a makeshift platform towards an armored man. The commander from the looks of it. As she was restrained by the first man, the second looked her over like a piece of meat. Roughly messing with her young boobs and then spreading her pussy. He wasn’t even gentle as he shoved a rough implement up her crotch, drawing red blood in the process.
Zemoria focused in on the scum. They were like cockroaches. She would show them which gender was superior. A predatory grin graced her toothed maw as she beat her wings. She began her descent upon the village, unseen by its inhabitants, as she was using her abilities to cloak her presence. As a dragon she had long learned that her very form could induce panic and as such she had learned how to cloak her presence. Even if they had looked up, they would not see her since it was not just her presence she was hiding, but her very sight and sound.
With practiced grace, she settled down in the square. Her massive body took up much of the free space, but not so much as a feather was ruffled as her mountainous form settled into the square. Her prey hadn’t even noticed her land and simply continued what they were doing.
“Yes, very nice find. She’ll sell for top dollar. Take her to a healer and make sure she is sterilized. Fertile elves aren’t in very high demand right now.”
The knight restraining the little girl nodded, “Of course. It will be done, sir.”
Zemoria glared at the two knights and dropped her cloak. Instantly her form seemed to materialize in the square.
“You shall do no such thing, scum! What is your trash church even doing out here? These are not your lands.”
The eyes of all around widened.
“DRAGON!” came a panicked shout from somewhere. As several knights drew swords. None answered her question.
The lead knight muttered a prayer just a moment before drawing his own blade. “Begone foul beast! Our business here is our own!”
She gave him a second look, and found him pretty brave for a mere level 143. His other knights were all above level one hundred, if barely. It was odd for so many humans to be of that level, but not so surprising for the church knights. It practically seemed to be a requirement of their foul order.
Her look transitioned to a glare and with more force she demanded, “Speak!”
He gritted his teeth attempting to resist her command. She could feel him starting to break. But before he did, his subordinate spoke. “We came here looking for whatever mage leveled part of the beach. Unfortunately that elf doesn’t seem to be here. She would have been quite the prize. We were sorting the remaining locals trying to find those worth anything. The rest are to be killed.”
Her glare intensified, “Killed? Enslaved. You just prove what scum your kind really are.”
She smiled, “I know just what to do with you.”
The knight commander chose that moment to charge forward, intent on attacking her. Lazily she swatted him with a single claw and his body smashed into a wall. The wall crumbled and he flew through six more before coming to a stop. With a thought, his battered body suddenly flew back and landed awkwardly in front of her.
She laughed, “What did you think that would do?”
He simply glared. That was no matter, his answer was of no consequence to her as she was ready to punish these vermin.
Zemoria needed space for what she had in mind. Since the building she had smashed the knight through was already damaged and empty, she decided to go ahead and level it and make a nice empty space for her artifact. It was a completely worthless apparel shop from what she could see of the tailor's equipment and the dresses on display. Once she was finished with this town they would not even need to replace it.
Her tail lashed out twice, making quick work of the fragile structure and reducing it to rubble. She heard what she could only assume was the owner of the establishment cry out, "NO! MY SHOP!", as she focused her magic and quickly cast a spell to clear the area and flatten the ground.
She shook her head, that moron had worse things to worry about than his shop. If the church had their way he would likely be dead come tomorrow. Of course, she felt sorry for the poor man being born male. No wonder he hid his body with clothes, but that wasn’t going to be a problem for much longer. She will fix that problem while she is here and see if she can’t learn where this strong mage went. It seemed the church had already done some looking into it.
Turning to the talkative one, “So this strong mage you were looking for, tell me everything you know about her and I might be merciful.” That was a lie of course. No point in giving mercy to scum.
The man quickly spilled as her previous spell was still in effect, “According to the villagers, the only daughter of the Thorn family cast the spell. Apparently, she is about eight years old. Which is great for us because children of that age are easily indoctrinated to our order. Considering her abilities, we could have sold her for thousands! Tens of thousands! Once she was properly trained, that is.”
Zemoria froze, “Did you say, Thorn?”
He nodded.
“Describe her, and her mother. Now!”
Zemoria listened to him as he rambled off the description they got from the villagers. Her heart soared as he spoke. Finally! After all these years she had a lead on her wayward priestess and even better, the fool girl had a daughter. One with potential it seemed. She couldn’t believe her good fortune. Now she just had to find the trail. But first, she had scum to punish and a village to bless.
The swirling darkness suddenly gave way to a large structure. Polished and gleaming, the dome-like structure seemed rather alien when placed next to the wooden structures of the elven village. Its surface was carved with an archaic script. Solean in origin to be specific. They were an old race, one not often seen in these parts nowadays. Last time Zemoria had seen a member of the race was centuries ago. Little surprise there, as they started leaving after the mana levels dropped at the end of the primal era. If any remained on this world she knew not where they were.
She grinned, “Well, boys! I’d like to introduce you to one of my favorite toys. It was created by a long dead god known as Marcus, the only son of the Primordial God King. I present the Girl Factory; a powerful magical artifact designed to convert the entire population of a world into cute girls. Unfortunately, its original power source is long depleted. So it won’t work to its full potential, but a few naughty knights such as yourself can still experience the joys of its work.”
The knights that still had their swords gripped them tighter. Not that it would do them any good. Soon there would be no more men in this village. It was time to restore the place to its proper form. As for the knights, not only will they get to be cute girls, but she had ideas for them.”